Advantage of Next Generation IGBTs

IGBTs  Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor. IGBTs have always been known for high efficiency and fast switching semiconductor devices which transfers the electrical power to various appliances such as refrigerators, air conditioners etc. The article will throw light on the advantage of next generation IGBT (IGBT4) that is “Saving of Energy” and this is done by the characteristics and operational behavior of these new generation IGBTs.

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;}

IGBTs – Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor. IGBTs have always been known for high efficiency and fast switching semiconductor devices which transfers the electrical power to various appliances such as refrigerators, air conditioners etc. The article will throw light on the advantage of next generation IGBT (IGBT4) that is “Saving of Energy” and this is done by the characteristics and operational behavior of these new generation IGBTs.

 

Nowadays, energy saving is the prime objective of every country. Demand for the energy is increasing and moreover, factors like rising energy costs, lack of availability of fossil fuels and to reduce the emission of CO2 justify the reason fro energy saving.

 

Energy can be saved by using efficient machines like inverters which further require optimized power semiconductor components and devices and IGBTs have become one of the significant components to achieve the goal. The next generation IGBT is available in three chip versions which are low, medium and high power IGBT modules.

 

1. Low version is IGBT4 – T-4 which gives nominal current from 10 to 300 A with fast switching behavior.

 

1. Medium version power module is IGBT4 – E-4 having good on-state and switching characteristics and gives current in the range of 150 to 1000 A.

 

1. The other one is IGBT4 – P-4 for high power modules with current greater than 900 A having soft switching characteristics.

 

The new IGBT4 generation is better than previous IGBT3 in terms of electrical performance. The former is a 1200V optimized chip operates at 1500C as compare to the latter one which is a 600V optimized chip operating at 1250C. Among these two IGBTs, the one which is operating at higher temperature leads to high output power.

 

Switching characteristics in the IGBT behavior is of real concern. The E-versions of the IGBTs are softer as compare to T-versions i.e. they have a soft switching characteristic. This type of characteristics is compared at nominal current as a function of DC link voltage. Another factor which is significant in the success of new generation IGBTs chips is the low static and dynamic losses with higher output. In addition to this, in the insulated gate transistors the induction of stray inductance with respect to the gate resistance with turn-on and off losses has a greater influence on the voltage characteristics.

 

The above described behavior of IGBTs plays a major role in achieving the optimization potential for all the IGBT modules because as the stray inductance increases it is necessary to reduce the switching speed which is further obtained by increasing the external gate resistance. The increased gate resistance leads to higher turn-on losses. Therefore higher stray inductance reduces the softness of IGBTs & diodes that results into the desired potential or output power. Hence the operational behavior of the new generation IGBTs due to all these characteristic results in the efficient method of saving energy.

 

 

Beganto

 

Beganto Engineering Services

 

Article Tags: Next Generation, Generation Igbts

Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR